The meaning of excellence

Comprehensive excellence (ihsan or itqan) is one of the most important Islamic values. It likewise constitutes a vital aspect of the conceptual framework for Islamic architecture. Excellence saturates every dimension of the Islamic message. Since Islam is a complete way of life, it follows that excellence is to be felt in all life’s spheres. When the angel Jibril (Gabriel) asked Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) what excellence is, the Prophet’s reply was: “Excellence is to worship God as if you see him, for if you do not see Him He sees you.”

Excellence is prescribed (kataba) to Muslims as explicitly as the other fundamental obligations, such as praying (salah), fast (siyam) and struggle for the holy Islamic cause (jihad).

The Prophet (pbuh) once said: “Indeed, Allah loves when one of you does something that he does it to perfection.” It is interesting to call to mind the context in which these words of the Prophet (pbuh) were uttered, thus drawing attention to the seriousness of the matter. When the Prophet’s son Ibrahim died and was buried, some unevenness had been left in the earth on his grave. The unevenness must have been minor in that the people were able to overlook it. It was such a sad occasion, so it was unthinkable for anyone to say or do anything, no matter how trivial, that could aggravate the people’s feeling, in general, and that of the Prophet (pbuh), in particular. Noticing the unevenness, the Prophet (pbuh) leveled the earth by his hand and made the above statement.[1]

During the process of building the Prophet’s mosque in Madinah in which practically all Muslims participated, the Prophet (pbuh) also called people’s attention to the significance of excellence. It is reported that a man in course of building the mosque was expertly treading clay for making bricks of which the mosque was built. On seeing him, the Prophet (pbuh) said: “May Allah have mercy upon him who excels in his profession.” And to the man he said: “Keep doing this job for I see that you excel in it.”[2]

Therefore, Islam is a religion of excellence. Muslims are to strive for excellence in all that they do: in both religious rituals and pure worldly affairs. All forms of deliberate mediocrity, which is the opposite of excellence, are deemed against the spirit of Islam and are thus disproved off. Human actions, if executed in the spirit of deliberate mediocrity, are likely to be repudiated by God. So important in Islam is integrating excellence into human actions that it represents a condition for such actions to be accepted by God.

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Tawhid (God’s Oneness)

The notion of tawhid is the most important cornerstone in the conceptual framework for Islamic architecture. Tawhid means asserting the unity or oneness of Allah. Tawhid is the Islamic concept of monotheism. The word tawhid is derived from the words wahid and ahad which mean “one”, “unique” and “peerless”. Based on the concept of tawhid, Muslims believe that God cannot be held equal in any way or degree to any other being or concept. Maintaining that there is no God except Allah and that there is nothing comparable to Him constitutes the essence of tawhid and the essence of Islam. Thus, declaring God’s oneness, tawhid, together with Prophet Muhammad’s prophethood (shahadah), is the first requirement for one who wishes to embrace the Islamic religion. Shirk, or associating anybody or anything with God making it comparable to Him, is the opposite of tawhid. It is the gravest sin which God vowed never to forgive.

Tawhid has three aspects: (1) Oneness of the Lordship of God (Tawhid al-Rububiyyah) (2) Oneness of the Worship of God (Tawhid al-Uluhiyyah or Tawhid al-‘Ibadah) (3) Oneness of the Names and Qualities of God (Tawhid al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat).

According to these three aspects, there is only one Lord for all the universe, Who is its Creator, Organizer, Planner, Sustainer and Giver of security. He is the only Creator, the rest is His creation. He is the only Master, the rest are His servants. Nothing from His World can be a quality of the created world, and nothing from the created world can be ascribed to His World. Similarities that exist between the two realms, the divine and earthly, do not exceed the level of sheer names. Beyond that nothing is the same. There can never be an exchange in the arrangement of designations between the two dominions: that of the Creator and that of His creation.

Since the Lord and Master of the world remains as such forever, the servants too remain what they are forever. Since the Creator and Sustainer remains as such forever providing the everlasting source of all that exist, the creatures too remain forever mortal, recipients of and completely dependent on divine material and spiritual provisions. In all their undertakings, it stands to reason, people’s primary mission should always be to acknowledge this undeniable truth, unselfishly exhibit its effects and try to integrate it into each and every aspect of their cultural and civilizational accomplishments. People are never to get carried away by their ostensible earthly achievements and, as a result, rebel against the established spiritual paradigms in life and then attempt to modify or manipulate them. People’s earthly achievements ought always to reflect God’s greatness as opposed to man’s smallness, God’s self-sufficiency as opposed to man’s lack of it, God’s infinity and permanence as opposed to man’s wavering and insecurity, God’s supremacy as opposed to man’s fragility. Any other approach would signify a sheer falsehood, deception and fictitious optimism.

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Representation of human figures

The fundamental nature of beauty and the beautiful in Islam outlined above appears technically not to be completely in opposition to the moderate and qualified representation of humans too, given that humans are also Allah’s beautiful creation abounding with signs that clearly point to Him, just like everything else: “On the earth are Signs for those of assured Faith; as also in your own selves: will ye not then see?” (Al-Dhariyat 20-21).

According to a set of fatwas (formal legal opinions), there is nothing wrong in drawing human beings in a restrained and qualified way, as long as such images do not depict nudity and other indecent representations abhorrent to the Islamic tawhidic worldview such as the idealization of infidelity, individualism, self-realization and man’s animal passions, and are not used for veneration or glorification of the images’ substance by either the artist or the beholder, and do not fall short of promoting moderation and uprightness rather than extravagance, conceit, haughtiness and the squandering of one’s time, resources and energy. What is unconditionally wrong and thus strongly prohibited is making and keeping statues, i.e., complete, solid figures which have not been disfigured or otherwise defaced.[1] Their presence in a house is sufficient to drive away the angels, as the Prophet (pbuh) unequivocally stated on numerous occasions.

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Recognizing beauty through a sixth sense

No wonder then that the Islamic message created in men a sixth sense, which transcends the boundaries of the five animal senses. Through this sixth sense, people can see and appreciate the real beauty of creation. Such is the beauty of the inner world, “that is, the spiritual, moral and religious values.”[1] The inner beauty is more perfect and greater than the outer beauty, the world of appearance.[2] As a matter of fact, the outer beauty, if divorced from, or – worse yet – if it contradicts the quintessence of the inner beauty, it becomes incomplete, and if observed from the ontological point of view, the same then cannot be even classified as beauty. Certainly, nothing can be viewed as beautiful if it did not serve the cause of the truth, irrespective of the intensity of its falsely embellished appearances. There is no thing that stands at the diametrically opposite direction of the truth, directly or indirectly promoting falsehood and vice, that it can be viewed as beautiful or wholesome.

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Introduction

This paper aims to discuss the notion of beauty from a perspective of the Islamic worldview. The paper shows that beauty in Islam and the utter formation of Islamic aesthetics – just like any other segment of Islamic culture and civilization – cannot be disengaged from the body of Islamic teachings and values and be treated in isolation. From conceptualizing beauty, over creating and appreciating beautiful objects and experiences, and finally to valuing and elevating the idea of beauty to such a level as to relate the same to the Ultimate Transcendental Reality, i.e. God, who is the source of all beauty, Islam provides an inspiration and guidance so that an actual and unambiguous aesthetic realization is duly accomplished on earth. The paper is divided into the following sections: 1) The beauty of Allah’s creation, 2) Defining beauty from different perspectives, 3) Islam on the duality of existence, 4) The believer’s universal outlook on life shapes his perception of beauty, 5) Recognizing beauty through a sixth sense, 6) Islam’s keenness for expressing and enjoying beauty, 7) Two erroneous views on beauty in Islam, 8) Representation of human figures, 9) Conclusion: the beauty of Allâh.

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